Cigarette display cabinets are widely used in convenience stores, supermarkets, drug stores, discount stores and similar "serve yourself" stores and point-of-purchase locations to hold and display cigarette packages and cartons available for sale. Typically, such cabinets comprise a generally rectangular enclosure having a plurality of horizontal shelves mounted therein for supporting stacks of cigarette cartons. Sometimes one or more transparent doors are provided for the cabinet to allow the purchaser to view and access the contents of the cabinet.
A key feature of any cigarette cabinet is its security system. Cigarettes have become increasingly expensive, largely due to rising excise taxes imposed by federal and state governments. As a result, several hundred cigarette cartons represent a valuable inventory of several thousand dollars. Accordingly, cigarettes are increasingly a target of thieves, especially shoplifters. In order to safeguard cigarette display cabinets from pilfering by shoplifters, a variety of locking devices have been used to secure the cabinets. However, when a store is busy or short on personnel, it is time-consuming and frequently inconvenient and distracting for a clerk or salesperson to locate the key to the lock, walk to the cigarette cabinet, which may be located in another part of the store, unlock the cabinet, wait until the patron selects his merchandise, and then relock the cabinet and return to his work station. This practice is especially difficult in many stores, such as convenience stores, which ordinarily have only one cashier who must leave the cash register unattended to unlock the cigarette cabinet, thereby inconveniencing waiting patrons and, at the same time, jeopardizing the security of the cash register. It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a locking cigarette cabinet which is both secure against pilfering and convenient to operate.